Saturday, February 18, 2012

The new t-shirts I've only seen on eBay. I'll try to get more information on these.

The official online store for Warner Brothers now has Glinda on a variety of product and iPhone cases in 11 designs.

Lenox continues their Oz series with the Wicked Witch of the East.SRP: $251 Currently on sale for $176.00 or can be pre-ordered with Storyland Collectables for $173.

The Marie Osmond dolls will debut on QVC next month. The Marie Osmond doll shows are on March 19th. (March 18th late if you live on the west coast) Check your local listings.I will post more details as they are available.

Also coming from Charisma Brands' Adora this year is a 22" talking and singing Dorothy.She's priced around $100. She can be seen in the March issue of Dolls Magazine on page 34. Again, more information will be posted as it becomes available.

Two fantastic music clips composed by Sound Master, Chris Granner. Who better to tell you about the pieces than Chris himself?...

"The Merry Old Land of Oz" arrangement started life in my mind as the main "Emerald City Multiball" background track (more on all the rules at some much later point), and the "show" that starts multiball calls for a big fanfare opening (which you hear in this arrangement). The thing I thought it needed to make it "go fast enough" for multiball was, 1) about 24 beats per minute FASTER than they take it in the movie, and 2) a collection of "inner voices", accompanying textures if you will, that had a little more energy than the "oom-pah" style of the original. Fun, right?! So, I get this together and send it off to Keith, who responds (paraphrase here) "I like it a lot...but it's too happy for multiball." Doh! I went back & read the rule set again. Double Doh! CLEARLY this play state requires something darker. JEEZ! where o WHERE will I find DARK in this soundtrack!?

Although that question has at least two dozen answers, there wasn't much competition in my mind: enter "Night on Bald Mountain" obviously! In the movie, the "fanfare" opening of this arrangement is a REALLY scary gesture in the brass -- which is used throughout that scene for something VERY specific which has its very own place ELSEWHERE in the rules -- so I couldn't use it here. Bottom line: the fanfare for the opening to multiball is still to be revealed, but this tune has this super-intense texture to open, that leads right into that incredible brass anthem refrain, and just NEVER lets up -- PERFECT for multiball! The crazy thing about this is: "Night on Bald Mountain" was written by the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky and is a wonderful example of the late-romantic harmonic and orchestral style advanced by him and his contemporaries. But I'll tell you one thing for sure: they NEVER played it like the Hollywood orchestra did for the Wizard of Oz! The version from the movie is half-again as fast, tempo-wise; in fact, MY version is at exactly the same tempo as the movie soundtrack's version, and no kidding, in order to "perform" the parts (on my keyboard), I literally had to slow the tempo down by a factor of three in some cases. JUST insane -- really gave me new respect for just how virtuosic those Hollywood orchestra cats were! (If you want to hear the piece performed more as Mussorgsky imagined it, just YouTube "Fantasia Bald Mountain." Remember? And does that mountain top look like a Balrog or WHAT!?)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these two numbers, at least a third as much as I enjoyed putting them together! To be continued....."

A small portion of the playfield artwork created by Greg Freres, The Witch's Castle upper playfield. In coming weeks we will reveal much more including the playfield artwork which is in its final stages.

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We received many comments on the artwork we released for the Witch's Castle and we expect to be able to release more artwork in coming weeks as soon as we have further completions and approvals.

About Me

I've been an Oz collector for 20 years now. I love collecting and I love talking with other collectors. I mostly collect Dorothy and Toto, sometimes ruby slippers, but I do buy sets on occasion. My very favorite things to collect are Dorothy dolls. I have over 100 in my collection right now. :) I also love figurines, teddy bears and ornaments. Just about anything Dorothy and Toto.